Time to register knives: Attack on China train station leaves 33 dead

BEIJING (AP) -- More than 10 knife-wielding attackers slashed people at a train station in southwestern China late Saturday in what authorities called a terrorist attack by Uighur separatists, and police fatally shot four of the assailants, leaving 33 people dead and 130 others wounded, state media said.

The attackers, most of them dressed in black, stormed the Kunming train station in Yunnan province and started attacking people in the late evening, witness Yang Haifei told the official Xinhua News Agency from a hospital where he was being treated for chest and back wounds.

"I saw a person come straight at me with a long knife and I ran away with everyone," he told Xinhua, adding that people who were slower ended up severely injured. "They just fell on the ground," Yang said.

One suspect was arrested, Xinhua said. Evidence found at the scene of the attack showed that it was "a terrorist attack carried out by Xinjiang separatist forces," the agency quoted the municipal government as saying. Authorities considered it to be "an organized, premeditated violent terrorist attack."

The far western region of Xinjiang is home to a simmering rebellion against Chinese rule by separatists among parts of the Muslim Uighur (pronounced WEE'-gur) population.

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